Microsoft, your people are laughing at you

Summary: Microsoft's own 'choir' is ridiculing Microsoft's products, realising perhaps that there is a dead end

ONE REALLY knows that Microsoft is failing when even its enthusiastic cheerleaders turn into sad clowns and sometimes even boo their master. Case of point: Microsoft Windows on ARM and in tablets.

Microsoft boosters consistently express lack of confidence in it. We -- like just about anyone who paid attention to the news in December -- expected Microsoft news about ARM (we laughed at it around the time rumours had just trickled in). This even predates the December rumours because a deal was signed with ARM just weeks beforehand.

“Just because a product is announced does not mean it will be profitable, either.”Just because a deal gets signed does not mean much will change.

Just because a product is announced does not mean it will be profitable, either.

Case of point? KIN, Zune, Bong [sic]....

Matt Rosoff, who comes from a firm that worked along with Microsoft, has done his share of Microsoft boosting recently [1, 2, 3, 4]. He also mocks/pressures Microsoft's competitors, having wasted a lot of his time at CNET promoting the Zune in a column. But even Matt -- just like very irrational boosters like Preston Gralla -- is unwilling to voice confidence in what Microsoft does for mobile devices such as tablets. He blames the strategy ("See If You Can Spot The Problem With Microsoft's Tablet Strategy") rather than the poor product and it starts like this:

Earlier today, computer maker Asus kicked off the Consumer Electronics Show a day early by announcing four upcoming tablet computers. Three of them run Google's Android operating system. One runs Windows 7. See if you can guess which one is the outlier:

* Eee Pad MeMO: starts at $499

* Eee Pad Slider: starts at $499

* Eee Pad Transformer: starts at $399

* Eee Slate: starts at $999

Yes, that last one runs Vista 7, which is a resource hog. The rest use Linux. Microsoft was publicising hopes of using Vista Phony 7 [sic] on tablets, but since that platform is failing (despite around half a billion dollars in marketing), everyone should forget about it.

As I put it earlier in Identi.ca, "I think that Steve Ballmer does a lot of things at this stage just to show he does *something* and thus procrastinate an inevitable ejection."

All that Microsoft has left now (middle- and long-term) is software patents. Windows is part of the past, not the future. In the mean time, enjoy these new photos from Razvan Sandu (translation to English). They show Windows on vacation in the middle of the greatest ocean. ⬆